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(+1)

This was really cool!! Like Velvet I can tell there's a lot of depth, and it's already very fun and rewarding. Having real orbital dynamics is super awesome and can lead to very fun outcomes if explored further! And it's awesome that this is open source!

I've got a big ol list below of what is (I hope) constructive criticism. Hope it helps!

1. The UI is super cluttered and not very thought out. It really needs to be whittled down to the bare minimum. 

- Text and buttons also overlap on my screen, so it clearly needs to be tested in a greater variety of resolutions. The tutorial text spills down over the bottom of the screen.
- I just got lucky clicking on J to open the journal because there was no indication of what that button does. Have tooltips for your buttons.
- Clicking the UI sometimes triggers thrusters and shooting. Maybe just lock input if you're docked in a station and have a button to leave? This could also allow keyboard navigation.
- Massive information overload when first starting. The tutorial is a big wall of text for what is really quite simple information. Instead of telling the player not to press anything, just stop them from being able to. Don't have all the UI visible at once, just make them appear piece by piece as they become relevant. Maybe start off with teaching combat (the fun part) in a more controlled enclosed arena of some kind before letting players out into open space?
- Maybe replace more of the bland text with icons that the player can get used to by hovering?

2. Gameplay impressions in first minutes:

- Tapping thrust is annoying, I wanna hold the mouse down.
- Targeting is super hard to control, it seems to just randomly pick nearby targets if they're off screen, and I can't really tell which direction they are.
- Most of the exposition from the characters besides the really important stuff is pretty unnecessary and could be told through tooltips and flavour text. The fact I have to wade through so much text to find the controls and core concepts is kinda tedious.

3. Bugs

- At some point my thrust and shoot buttons flipped? Not sure if that's a bug or an option somewhere?
- It says you cycle between boosters with B and fire with G but actually you just fire with B

4. I won't comment much on the graphics because obviously they have a lot to be desired and I guess you have plans to make it pop a little more. The only thing I will say is the main challenge will be differentiating between all the different objects. Silhouettes are gonna be very important :)

Overall it's a fantastic base for a game and has a lot of potential. I hope you see it through!

Thanks for the detailed feedback, could you let me know what resolution you were running?
Lots of good ideas in here, I won't address every point, but the UI is definitely overwhelming and the tutorial is not a good solution for that.  Tooltips might be part of a better solution.
Targeting isn't really controlled for the most part.  It was too complicated and buggy, so I removed a chunk of that UI.  Now, it mostly  autotargets what you're pointing at.  I'll fix it, there's nothing I love more than making bling hustle more complicated.
The thrust/shoot flip is technically a feature for touchscreen devices.  Bling Hustle is a terrible game for a touchscreen, and touchscreen devices are terrible for everything, but 99% of the people I talk to about the game don't have or don't use keyboard and mouse.  I haven't really figured out how to have that option available when needed without it being obtrusive to the high functioning users.

(+1)

Glad it helped!

Resolution is 3840 x 2400. I just noticed you said 1080p resolution is recommended so that's on me haha.

Actually I think the autotarget can work, just all it needs is a button to lock your current target? The most annoying part was once I had found my target, other ships would fly in front and I'd lose it.

Ohh OK that makes sense with the controls. What triggers the change, out of curiosity?

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A bit surprised it was on the high end, but I guess I shouldn't be.  I created a separate, more minimalistic HUD for lower resolutions, which I'd observed were a problem from interface elements being squished into each other.  But I'd never done any testing at higher than 1080p, because that's my monitor.  I'm guessing I did some approximate math with the text wrap that isn't close enough at very high resolutions.


The change between right/left mouse buttons was a button on the screen like the lettered shortcuts (which also indicate the keyboard key, V can turn them off if you remember those keyboard controls).  But I apparently phased it out at some point, and have it in the options menu, which is unreachable without a keyboard anyways.  So there's a mystery for me to figure out.

Also, the T key is supposed to lock onto a target, but I just tried it and it crashed the game, so that's a whole thing to figure out too.  Really helpful to find these things.

(+1)

Aha!  I think I fixed the targeting issue, T key should now properly lock on to current target or unlock target if you already have a locked target.
On further inspection, the mobile thrust hack should only be onscreen and clickable if your device is detected as a"mobile device", or if your resolution is at least 99,999 pixels wide.  Not sure why either would apply, but the mobile device check is very much copypasta.  I think the thrust/shoot toggle does show up the options menu (O key) can disable it but I'm not actually sure.